Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

NoTrend said:
haha, let me try this

so i guess barring an album like Channel Orange, because that record I think would sell no matter packaging color. If we take Spiritualized, assuming it's a decent remaster, and the packaging is up to standard, would it be safe to say if VMP just released this essential as black and no mention of color, the sub impact for this track would be minimal at best?
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Yes. I don't even think there is any question about it. If the title is popular and hard to find, the color will not affect sales on ROTMs.
 
no wonder why band/labels would want to give a licencing deal to vmp then. Jeez, who knew VMP found a shit of people that really do care about remastering etc

at least that is what i am gathering from this group anyways. Cause I think even Sony couldn't pull off a 10k sale of this record. that really is wild
 
NoTrend said:
no wonder why band/labels would want to give a licencing deal to vmp then. Jeez, who knew VMP found a shit of people that really do care about remastering etc

at least that is what i am gathering from this group anyways. Cause I think even Sony couldn't pull off a 10k sale of this record. that really is wild
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In 2017, VMP was the 4th biggest online vinyl retailer in the world behind Amazon, Urban Outfitters and Newbury Comics. When they released Madvillainy way back when, it was the #1 best-selling vinyl that month on Nielsen SoundScan despite it being released originally over 10 years prior to then (and that wasn't even a remaster or on colored vinyl). Billboard doesn't even count their sales anymore towards album sale totals now because of that. And VMP has only grown since then.

VMP's biggest asset is it's subscriber base and reach. But labels are now starting to catch on to how much people are willing to pay for records so it's why quite a few are pressing in-house now and not going through other places like MoFi, Analogue Productions, etc. I suspect that labels are starting to want more percentage of royalties from VMP, which is why they seem to be drifting more toward less popular titles in between the bigger releases (especially the dollar bin type records in Classics that they have every few months). It's also why they have shifted over to 3 month minimum subscriptions for awhile. Lock people in with 1 or 2 big titles in 3 months and let the others be lesser known that they pay less to license.

I agree that Sony would have trouble selling 8-10k copies of Spiritualized in a month. But that's because they do not have a built-in subscriber base of 25k+ people. I'd be willing to bet that a large number of VMP customers won't necessarily opt-in to buying Spiritualized, but will still receive it just by default.

I'll also add this: the remastering is nice for a large chunk of people here. But it's the exclusivity, resale value, etc that brings people to subscribe. Not announcing subscription numbers and letting albums go out of stock is one of the smartest business decisions they have made IMO. As annoying as it if for consumers, the idea of false scarcity is a huge driving factor in consumers buying something like vinyl.

I mean, look at the Zamrock Anthology now being sold on Rappcats. It was $240 through VMP. Rappcats is selling it for $400 and even in their description it says "The Story of Zamrock has been long sold out via Vinyl Me, Please. These are the last remaining copies – which we are happy to offer for half of the lowest listing on Discogs."
 
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MikeH said:
In 2017, VMP was the 4th biggest online vinyl retailer in the world behind Amazon, Urban Outfitters and Newbury Comics. When they released Madvillainy way back when, it was the #1 best-selling vinyl that month on Nielsen SoundScan despite it being released originally over 10 years prior to then (and that wasn't even a remaster or on colored vinyl). Billboard doesn't even count their sales anymore towards album sale totals now because of that. And VMP has only grown since then.

VMP's biggest asset is it's subscriber base and reach. But labels are now starting to catch on to how much people are willing to pay for records so it's why quite a few are pressing in-house now and not going through other places like MoFi, Analogue Productions, etc. I suspect that labels are starting to want more percentage of royalties from VMP, which is why they seem to be drifting more toward less popular titles in between the bigger releases (especially the dollar bin type records in Classics that they have every few months). It's also why they have shifted over to 3 month minimum subscriptions for awhile. Lock people in with 1 or 2 big titles in 3 months and let the others be lesser known that they pay less to license.

I agree that Sony would have trouble selling 8-10k copies of Spiritualized in a month. But that's because they do not have a built-in subscriber base of 25k+ people. I'd be willing to bet that a large number of VMP customers won't necessarily opt-in to buying Spiritualized, but will still receive it just by default.
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yeah i mean in the end, you made great points, though I still am a bit skeptical of say if this record was just black vinyl that there would not be an impact of at least 500-1000

but none the less, wow
 
NoTrend said:
yeah i mean in the end, you made great points, though I still am a bit skeptical of say if this record was just black vinyl that there would not be an impact of at least 500-1000

but none the less, wow
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Sure. But 500-1000 is just a drop in the bucket for them. That's somewhere between 2% and 4% loss of customers (maybe even less if they have grown since 2017 when they claimed to have 25k subscribers) and since they have people locked into 3 month+ long contracts, people end up just taking an album even if they don't necessarily want it.
 
MikeH said:
Sure. But 500-1000 is just a drop in the bucket for them. That's somewhere between 2% and 4% loss of customers (maybe even less if they have grown since 2017 when they claimed to have 25k subscribers) and since they have people locked into 3 month+ long contracts, people end up just taking an album even if they don't necessarily want it.
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Yeah thats wild...damn
 
NoTrend said:
haha, let me try this

so i guess barring an album like Channel Orange, because that record I think would sell no matter packaging color. If we take Spiritualized, assuming it's a decent remaster, and the packaging is up to standard, would it be safe to say if VMP just released this essential as black and no mention of color, the sub impact for this track would be minimal at best?
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100% Spiritualized needs a good pressing and there is none readily available. However The Flaming Lips ROTM, On the other hand; was readily available with well regarded pressing of The Soft Bulletin had they chosen to press that in black it would have been pointless, there is a quality Chris Bellman cut Pallas pressed version readily available. I Believe Buena Vista Social Club is another good example of this.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
100% Spiritualized needs a good pressing and there is none readily available. However The Flaming Lips ROTM, On the other hand; was readily available with well regarded pressing of The Soft Bulletin had they chosen to press that in black it would have been pointless, there is a quality Chris Bellman cut Pallas pressed version readily available. I Believe Buena Vista Social Club is another good example of this.
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yeah I've had both Flaming lips pressings (OG and this newer one, which I know used the plates as the reissue before, and i know we can never get a true remaster) so that toally makes sense

I guess I just don't pay attention like you guys do to VMP ins and outs so, I'm still kind of in shock, but I think it's more due to my next point

and yes i guess this is going to come off as snobby, I don't mean it to be, but it's just my experience - I guess the record collector world I'm in for the most part, I don't know how serious they'd take VMP, and granted most of my friends aren't the target demo for VMP (just title wise for the most part). I got into VMP really cause my buddy was starting out and really wasn't a record collector, and was never a part of any record collector world, wanted a friend to join him for VMP, I really stuck with it cause it gave us something to talk about, but I also stuck it out cause he's my friend and there have been titles I wanted (Coltrane/Davis Art ensemble of chicago etc). I so I think really it boils down to the issue that I am clueless/ignorant to this world of VMP so to speak , and really, I just had no idea what a machine VMP is..
 
NoTrend said:
yeah I've had both Flaming lips pressings (OG and this newer one, which I know used the plates as the reissue before, and i know we can never get a true remaster) so that toally makes sense

I guess I just don't pay attention like you guys do to VMP ins and outs so, I'm still kind of in shock, but I think it's more due to my next point

and yes i guess this is going to come off as snobby, I don't mean it to be, but it's just my experience - I guess the record collector world I'm in for the most part, I don't know how serious they'd take VMP, and granted most of my friends aren't the target demo for VMP (just title wise for the most part), so I think really it boils down to the issue that I am clueless/ignorant to this world of VMP so to speak, and really, I just had no idea what a machine VMP is..
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VMP has gone through some major growning pains over the last few years and while that has had a huge negative impact on what many would have considered top notch customer service their actual product is usually quality. There are some QC issues here and there (and eventually they will usually correct for those) but overall most albums put out by VMP at the very least meet modern standards (many often exceed those standards). I am sure it is easy for some to write off VMP, many on this forum justifiably have; but I think most collectors I have interacted with take their product seriously at the very least.
 
Crabbers said:
www.vinylmeplease.com

Beyond Blue Original Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the immersive ocean video game 'Beyond Blue' is here on aqua blue and silver galaxy vinyl.
www.vinylmeplease.com www.vinylmeplease.com
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Is this a new road they're exploiting, I mean exploring? Video game soundtracks? It's been 10+ years since I was much of a gamer at all, but the list of artists on this soundtrack to a game I've never heard of is intriguing.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
VMP has gone through some major growning pains over the last few years and while that has had a huge negative impact on what many would have considered top notch customer service their actual product is usually quality. There are some QC issues here and there (and eventually they will usually correct for those) but overall most albums put out by VMP at the very least meet modern standards (many often exceed those standards). I am sure it is easy for some to write off VMP, many on this forum justifiably have; but I think most collectors I have interacted with take their product seriously at the very least.
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Yeah, I don't think it would be the physical product so much as the titles and their selections, but again, a lot of what I'm into prob isn't anything (for the most part) VMP would license (then again they did sonny sharrock...)
 
NoTrend said:
and yes i guess this is going to come off as snobby, I don't mean it to be, but it's just my experience - I guess the record collector world I'm in for the most part, I don't know how serious they'd take VMP, and granted most of my friends aren't the target demo for VMP (just title wise for the most part). I got into VMP really cause my buddy was starting out and really wasn't a record collector, and was never a part of any record collector world, wanted a friend to join him for VMP, I really stuck with it cause it gave us something to talk about, but I also stuck it out cause he's my friend and there have been titles I wanted (Coltrane/Davis Art ensemble of chicago etc). I so I think really it boils down to the issue that I am clueless/ignorant to this world of VMP so to speak , and really, I just had no idea what a machine VMP is..
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I'm part of that collector world, where I value pressing/mastering quality over all else on reissues and I did totally write VMP off for those reasons in the beginning. But, when I noticed they were putting out stuff that wasn't available in better presses, like the Noname I almost missed on, I joined for Saba for fear of the same thing happening.

However, in that time, they got a lot more serious about doing AAA in the Classics track, so I do think people in that collector group you mention take the Classics track seriously now. I still don't usually pick up the ones that I could get original pressings for under $20 for though. I also haven't picked up earlier titles, even though I want them, because I'd rather have a well remastered version of Journey to Satchidananda, for example, than a GZ DMM.
 
NoTrend said:
hah, though i'd argue that may be a bad example just due to that artists reach/fan base

I think Spiritualized would be a better example, great, great record sure, critics love it sure take away the color aspect, as far as I know this is a true remaster, could that alone carry that track? And i'm not saying 1000-3000 of these won't go, but, its something i wonder
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I barely noticed (or care) that Spiritualized is on colored vinyl, I’m just extremely happy to finally have an option that’s not Plain (they are the worst, Burr)
 
tvham said:
I barely noticed (or care) that Spiritualized is on colored vinyl, I’m just extremely happy to finally have an option that’s not Plain (they are the worst, Burr)
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Yeah. It's sad cause there's was the only in print version of Loveless for so long (which is where my disgust started with them in the mid 00s) . And them being under the runt umbrella makes total sense
 
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